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Defiant Bajrang Dal shows up schism in Sangh Parivar

Rahul Singh in Bhopal

Police burst teargas shells and used force to drive out a violent group of Bajrang Dal activists who stormed Bhopal's Dussehra Maidan and unfurled a saffron flag in defiance of a ban imposed by the Madhya Pradesh government on their three-day national convention that was to begin today.

Official sources said 11 persons, including two policemen, were hurt in stonepelting and violence.

The activists of the militant youth wing of the Hindu right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Conference) went ahead with their "symbolic" convention despite VHP working president Ashok Singhal's announcement that the meeting had been rescheduled at Vrindavan from March 3 to avoid a confrontation with the government.

With a majority of Bajrang Dal leaders, including senior VHP vice-president Giriraj Kishore, defying Singhal's declaration, it is apparent that the organisation faces a schism on the issue.

Kishore, who has been camping in Bhopal for the last couple of days and was arrested in a swoop at dawn today, however, denied any rift. Speaking to rediff.com at the irrigation bungalow at Kerwa, where he was lodged after his arrest, he said: "Singhal was misquoted. But he could not issue a contradiction as he was too busy."

Earlier in the day more than 1,300 Bajrang Dal workers, including Bharatiya Janata Party MP Jaibhan Singh Pavaiyya and national Dal convenor Surendra Jain, courted arrest in different parts of the city after holding a symbolic convention despite the heavy police presence.

The police also arrested former Union minister Uma Bharati, member of Parliament from Bhopal, as she was entering the state capital this morning. She was later released.

The police made nearly 5,000 preventive arrests in different parts of the state to prevent the belligerent Dal from holding its convention. For the last few days, Bhopal has been looking like a police camp.

Even as Bajrang Dal leaders claimed victory by pointing out that their convention had attracted more attention than it would normally have, the BJP took up their cause inside the Madhya Pradesh assembly. Its MLAs walked out in protest against the mass arrests and "violation of human rights", resulting in the House being adjourned till Monday. Subsequently, they organised a noisy demonstration outside the Vidhan Sabha building.

The Bajrang Dal has threatened that it will not allow Congress president Sonia Gandhi to address a single public meeting in Madhya Pradesh in future. Convenor Jain said, "They should know that we can be more radical."

The crisis was sparked by the state government's order banning the Dal's convention. Chief Minister Digvijay Singh categorically refused to allow the function on the grounds that it would "vitiate communal harmony". He said, "I am convinced that the Bajrang Dal is an organisation of lumpen elements, who have nothing to do except rabble-rousing."

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